id	author	title	date	pages	extension	mime	words	sentence	flesch	summary	cache	txt
cjgl-2433	Reagan, Leslie	Victim or Accomplice?: Crime, Medical Malpractice, and the Construction of the Aborting Woman in American Case Law, 1860s-1970	2001	22	.pdf	application/pdf	10562	466	59	57 Wolcott v. Gaines, 169 S.E.2d 165, 166 (Ga. 1970). 2001] Columbia Journal of Gender and Law Kansas Supreme Court concluded that a woman could bring a suit against her abortionist for negligence or the next of kin could sue in the event of a woman's death.58 Indeed, the Kansas court felt no hesitancy about declaring that if the deceased Joy M. Joy had lived, she could have brought a suit for negligence herself 5 9 Certainly, her relatives, on behalf of her six- year-old daughter, could sue for wrongful death.6 Yet, a year later the Illinois State Supreme Court reached the opposite conclusion.6' In 1970, the Georgia Supreme Court reviewed case law on the question and concluded, as had the Kansas court, that civil suits following illegal abortions were allowed.62 The Kansas and Georgia decisions permitting women or their relatives to sue for damages in illegal abortion cases fit with the period's general trend toward making it easier for people to bring malpractice suits and coincided as well with the emerging movements for abortion law reform.63 Underlying the opposing responses to malpractice and wrongful death suits for abortion are implicit theories about the methods for deterring crime. It should be noted that the courts' treatment of women as victims in abortion cases cannot be explained as the natural result of the fact that the woman had died following an illegal abortion, since as in this case and a number of others, the woman survived her abortion efforts.	cache/cjgl-2433.pdf	txt/cjgl-2433.txt